Ross Terrill, Insightful Expert on Communist China, Is Dead at 85

Books|Ross Terrill, Insightful Expert on Communist China, Is Dead at 85

Ross Terrill, a political scientist and journalist whose extensive travels in China, beginning in the 1960s, made him one of the West’s most insightful guides to the country as it grew from self-imposed isolation to become a global superpower, died on Aug. 2 at his home in Boston. He was 85.

Philip Gambone, a writer and close friend of Mr. Terrill’s, confirmed the death. He said that Mr. Terrill had been ill in recent years, but that the cause of death was unclear.

Born in Australia, Mr. Terrill first visited China in 1964, a few years after graduating from the University of Melbourne and just before the country walled itself off to foreigners during the Cultural Revolution, a disastrous attempt to purge Chinese society of any remaining capitalist influences.

He returned seven years later, one of the first Westerners allowed back into China as the fervor of the Cultural Revolution cooled. He reported on his travels in a two-part article for The Atlantic Monthly; its readers, eager for any insight into Beijing’s thinking, included President Richard M. Nixon, who relied on it in preparing for his historic visit to China in 1972.

Mr. Terrill received a doctorate in political science from Harvard and remained affiliated with the university for the rest of his career, mostly as a research associate at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies.

His work, especially in the popular press, straddled the line between journalism and academia. Many of his books, like “The Real China” (1972) and “Flowers on an Iron Tree: Five Cities of China” (1975), offered a compelling blend of travel reporting, history and political analysis that earned him followings among both Sinologists and the general public.